Saxony is heading for less than four million inhabitants

Saxony could already have fewer than four million inhabitants next year. This is according to the new forecast on population development from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). According to several calculation variants, the Free State will only have 3.99 million inhabitants at the end of 2026. At the end of 2024, it was 4.04 million. The "Sächsische Zeitung" and "Leipziger Volkszeitung" had initially reported this.

Long-term decline

In the long term, the statisticians predict a decline of up to a good quarter. By 2070, the last year of the forecast, the population in Saxony will fall to between 2.9 and 3.5 million.

All eastern German states are affected by this development. The population figures there will fall in all variants - by 14 to 30 percent by 2070. In the western German states, the population is expected to remain stable with high immigration, while the city states may continue to grow with high or medium immigration.

Population is getting older

The background to this is the ageing population. People in the east are already significantly older today. In 2024, the proportion of over 67-year-olds there was 24 percent. This figure is expected to peak by 2038 and then fall again, according to the experts. In the west, the figure was 20 percent last year and 17 percent in the city states. The proportion is expected to continue to rise there.

Germany as a whole is also expected to shrink by 2070. Under moderate assumptions, the population will then be 74.7 million, according to Destatis. Only 2 of the 27 calculation variants lead to slight growth. Compared to earlier projections, lower birth rates and lower net immigration in particular will have a dampening effect.